Posted on 02/06/2007 7:52:15 AM PST by Aquinasfan
Student Life 101
Being a student today is about much more than academics
Leslie Wolfe ’80G
...IN THE NOT-TOO-DISTANT PAST, when a college education was a rarity, student life was nearly monastic. The mostly male student body adhered to a daily routine of chapel, classes, and perhaps military training. Meals were perfunctory, required exercise took place on the sole campus playing field or the single stuffy gymnasium, and then it was off to sleep in a Spartan dormitory room. Colleges operated in loco parentis; expectations for conduct were high, regulations were strict, and discipline was firm.
Those quaint times are far removed from today’s reality...
To help meet these expectations, offices of student affairs or student life now occupy spaces in administration buildings that are as extensive—and important—as those of academic affairs. Student affairs executives routinely preside over hundreds of staff members and budgets of tens of millions of dollars.
A Culture of Choice
On its surface, student life is about all the extracurricular things... On a deeper level, it is about choice—about the many opportunities and options laid out before students, and the choices they make...
...Beyond that, though, are more recent challenges—counseling on how to bond and have fun without running the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, for example [or spending eternity in hell, for example. Fornication is "having fun" in UMassWorld]...
"We've seen the increasing involvement of parents in the lives of college students. We have to help them strike a healthy balance and make sure that they are not too intrusive."The Parent Trap— Michael Jackson ’76G Vice President of Student Affairs and Enrollment Services University of Southern California, Los Angeles
For all student-life officials, dealing with parents is a top priority. “We’ve seen the increasing involvement of parents in the lives of college students,” says Jackson. “We have to help them strike a healthy balance and make sure that they are not too intrusive, so that the students can develop and mature and take responsibility for their own affairs.”...
UMass Amherst sends e-mails an average of four to five times a month, not only to keep parents informed of campus events but also to offer helpful advice. For instance, they help prepare parents for students’ return home on breaks when they may show up on the doorstep transformed—with new opinions on politics or religion or new forms of self-expression, such as a tattoo or a piercing. Students have gotten used to not having a curfew, so what should parents say when they go out at midnight?
...Of course, Jablonski and her colleagues also meet students in trouble, those who are facing the discipline system for academic or social problems. “Some students have a higher level of need,” she says. “You set expectations, give guidance, have them make choices and try things and sometimes fail, and then help them put it together again and go on to the next thing.” [So the school is still acting in loco parentis, just not with quaint, old-fashioned discipline, when "expectations for conduct were high, regulations were strict, and discipline was firm...].
"We view parents as partners in their sons' and daughters' education." —Michael Gargano, Vice chancellor of Student Affairs and Campus Life, UMass Amherst
[We'll help the kids make important life decisions. Parental "partners" can pay the bill]
“We are not working with a clean slate,” Moneta says. “Half our job is deconstructing certain attitudes.” He has observed a greater degree of moral relativism among incoming students. “This is a generation for whom 55 miles an hour means 65 miles an hour. Rules are starting points for negotiations. I don’t think we have any illusions that overnight we will transform our students into dramatically different folks, but we try to have them reflect on the decisions they make, good and bad, and learn from them. Then the next opportunity they have to make a decision, make a responsible one.” [What is "good" and "bad" in UMass world? Is pre-marital sex good or bad, or simply a decision to try out and learn from?]...
All the student affairs alumni agree that a university’s discipline system should be designed to aid in students’ moral and character development. Benedict says,
“The judicial process should help a student understand what went wrong so that it doesn’t happen again. If it’s designed simply to punish, with no time for a student to reflect on what went wrong and learn, then that system is not very useful.”...
While enjoying autonomy as a student, he also experienced some turbulent times as an administrator in the 1970s, when, among other events, students occupied the career center in protest over on-campus military recruiting. “I realized that there had to be some balance between laissez-faire and strict administrative guidance,” says Benedict. “Trying to find that balance has always been the challenge in my career. All of us in this profession feel the tension between empowering the students and providing sufficient guidance and advice so that you don’t end up with chaos.”
"One of the oldest programs in the country, Women's Studies at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst has been offering courses and graduating students since 1974. Women's Studies is an interdisciplinary program for the study of women and gender. Combining the analytic tools of many disciplines, women’s studies explores how women and men are constructed both historically and in the contemporary world. We explore gender within the context of race, class, nationality/ethnicity and sexuality. Our core faculty members have expertise in: African American women's history and activism, Asian American women’s history and activism, Asian American women's work, feminist ethics, feminist science studies, post-colonial studies, social constructions of identities, women's grass roots activism in the Caribbean and Latin America. Women's Studies also draws on faculty from a wide variety of diverse disciplines across campus such as history, literature, sociology, political science, communication, anthropology, African American studies, Germanic languages, comparative literature, psychology, education, management, legal studies, philosophy, economics, and more..."
And why do you "have to" do anything if there's no such thing as truth? The lunatics are running the asylum.
I was really upset while talking to my husband.
If you're not upset you're not paying attention.
In my estimation, 18 years old are still basically children. To be more precise, they are both children and adults, depending on what you are talking about and when. But they are probably too young to be cut loose with professional manipulators. Not all teachers are like that, fortunately. But when even they have to take a test to ensure their "suitability" to teach a non-academic course, then I think the entire higher educational system is in trouble. IMHO.
Somehow omits mentioning the burning of the ROTC Building in 1970.
Back in the '80s my college girlfriend told me about her "Woman's Studies" class. My reaction was, "what the ---?" I was safely tucked away in an engineering school, thank God.
ANTH 360
GENDER, CULTURE, AND POWER
Den Ouden
Feminist and other critical approaches in anthropology have challenged prevailing Western assumptions about the categories for “woman” and “man.” Such studies reveal that power infuses gender identities and gender relations in profound ways. This course provides an overview of anthropological studies of gender, culture, and power, with special attention to the construction and contestation of gender in varied cultural contexts. PREREQUISITE: Anth C100, or 103, or 106; or permission of instructor. 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Perhaps the only good thing about UMass, is that after four or five years from graduation you realize that you wasted only $15K per year instead of $40k per year.
(I am assuming in-state tuition with some commuting in there.....)
"Oh that?" said Dr. Pritchett. "But I believe I made it clear that I am in favor of it, because I am in favor of a free economy. A free economy cannot exist without competition. Therefore, men must be forced to compete. Therefore, we must control men in order to force them to be free."
Cripes.
For the uninitiated, the word "critical" in academic circles is synonymous with "Marxist."
But even Marxists have to depend on commonsense, Aristotelian concepts like "categories." It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
You're learning quickly. My husband teaches at what has traditionally been a conservative college (for a lot of reasons). The changes they are quickly making now are being forced on them if they are to get re-certified. Schools are certified every 10 years and re-evaluated on the off 5th year IIRC. The teacher who teaches this course (and he was a loud jerk) took great pleasure especially at toying with young Christians and their faith. We were at a dinner for professors and their families and it was all I could do to sit there. My husband eyed me nervously, knowing that it was all I could do to keep from arguing with this man. This setting was not the time or place...
My daughter had to take several required courses--Global Justice and some sort of multiculturalism (can't remember the exact name). It's hard for these kids today.
Critical Thinking means a willingness to forgo any criticism or analysis of Marxism, and simply accept it without question.
Good God, that sounds like a fever swamp of moral relativism, feminism and anti-Americanism.
Next time, raise your hand and ask in a polite tone, "is all of what you're teaching really true?"
And then sit down.
Nothing about personal fiscal achievement, national pride or sovereignty? Go figure. She's being trained to become a world slave.
I hope you're close to this kid. She needs you now more than ever.
Actually, she's a rebel. Against everything. But she has a good BS detector. She realized that she was being manipulated. In Global Justice, they used a video that they took of a Peter Singer speech. She came home disgusted. This school couldn't have done a better job of getting her to examine what she had been taught in church and home had they not tried.
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